Scripture Alone

Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

Without a doubt, the greatest necessity for the church today is “the unity of the faith”!  Even with blinkers beside our eyes and the briefest survey of the last one hundred fifty years of church history we see nothing but a cluttered mess of discord as regarding “the unity of the faith! The truth is in that mess somewhere, and the truth is always beautiful to behold, but, due to the disaster of the landscape, and the cluttering of the horizon with the buildings of man’s own theological skyscrapers, and the slums of doctrine that have been the results of these same men’s promises of a greater understanding and a closer relationship to God Almighty, the beautiful truth of what this “unity of the faith” is has gone nearly un-noticed. And unless we acquaint ourselves with what this “unity” is and train ourselves to recognize it, then I say, we will most certainly become as blind men; that, though we have eyes that can see we do not see, because we have become so accustomed to our surroundings they fade to grey and we no longer see them. If this is true of us then we are in a most desperate state. So let us have a close investigative look at this most beautiful truth, “the unity of the faith”.

What does the apostle in this verse mean by “unity of the faith”? What the apostle does not mean is that all denominations should set aside their doctrinal differences and agree that to disagree about doctrine is contradictory to being unified in the faith. By no means! However, the unlearned and the religious opportunists wrest with this scripture, subdue it, twist it, and imagine it to be the battle cry of the so called ecumenical movement. They believe that the apostle is here in this verse telling everyone in the church visible to accept one another as brothers in the faith no matter what they believe. In other words, if you say that you are Christian, well that ought to be good enough. Well, if this were true then the apostle Paul is in contradiction with his own teachings. In Romans chapter 16 and verse 17 Paul instructs the Romans to “… mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.” He is speaking, of course, of false teachers whom he goes on to say that the reason they teach these false doctrines is not to serve “our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly;”, and in doing so “by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.” The apostle in this verse is describing teachers of false Christian doctrine, mark and avoid them he says. Also, in Galatians chapter 1 the apostle declares that “there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.”, and goes on to tell them twice in two sentences that these deceivers are damned, ” let him be accursed.” says Paul. Again, the apostle makes note that there are those who are perverting and making crooked a truth. A truth that is the gospel no less. ,

This Greek word that Paul uses here translated unity is unique to all of scripture and occurs but twice and both times in this chapter. The first time is in verse 3 “ Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Its meaning is this, it is the harmony of views that the apostle is emphasizing that these Ephesians should have as he says “in the bond of peace.” that they should not be in argument. This does not mean ‘spiritual unity’ or fellowship in the Spirit that christians have due to the indwelling Spirit as the apostle declares in Philippians 2:2, “of one accord, of one mind,” For, to have a bond of peace, as mentioned, has immediate temporal implications. And, since our verse states that the saints are to “all come in the unity of the faith”, I think it is safe to say that this word unity should be understood as meaning ‘harmony of views’, as this patently appears to be what the apostle is communicating to these saints in Ephesus.

If the reader would now turn their attention and notice that ‘the unity’ spoken of, is the unity of the faith and not faith all by itself. There is the definite article of the before the word faith, and we can see throughout all of the new testament, from Acts to Revelation, and especially in the apostle Pauls epistles, the faith is used to describe the doctrines of Christianity. For, the faith is the entirety of Christian knowledge and understanding, it represents all the glorious truths of God’s revelation, as Jude describes this same faith like this in the third verse of his epistle, “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints”. The faith might literally be translated as the christian faith and all that that entails, i.e. all that is true of christianity. Acts 16;5 says too, “And so were the churches established in the faith, and increased in number daily.” i.e. established in the doctrines and the teachings of the apostles as in Acts 2;42 after Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost and the miraculous establishing of the church at Jerusalem, it says of these new converts that “…they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship”. Meaning that the apostles’ teachings were the mortar that the foundation of this church was held together by, the stones of course being the apostles and the prophets and Jesus being the chief corner stone.

It seems clear that the faith, spoken of in our verse of scripture here in Ephesians, does not mean ‘saving faith’. This is not the saving faith given by God “by faith to faith”(Rom 1:17) that the apostle speaks of in chapter two of this epistle, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:” Rather, the meaning of faith in this verse is clearly defined by the context of our passage. We have just been told by the apostle that the reason our Lord gave the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teacher was “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:” For what purpose and for how long?  “Till we all come in the unity of the faith,” And, what will this unity bring forth in our lives? “the knowledge of the Son of God,” And why is this so important to a christian? In the next verses the apostle tells us “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men,”. This is the faith that trains us up and arms us in the armour of God that the apostle is eager to share with these same christians in the last portion of this epistle. It is the knowledge that we need that we might be able to “stand in the Lord and the power of His might” and to “Put on the whole armour of God, that (we) may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

Peter says the exact same thing about the faith when he instructs us in the fifth chapter of his first epistle that in order to protect ourselves from the devil we must resist the devil, how? By being “stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.” James uses the faith in the same manner in his epistle in the first verse of chapter two, and Luke in the book of acts (13;7-8) records that when  “Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God.”, a Jewish sorcerer named Barjesus, or Elymas in the Greek tongue “withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith.” Having the highest civil magistrate turn to the faith of Christ (or other religion, as it it would be viewed by this sorcerer) would most certainly be bad for his business of being a Jewish sorcerer in this district. What he opposed is obviously the teachings and preaching of the gospel doctrines. This is that which this sorcerer was withstanding, and by withstanding is meant an opposition, and the only way to oppose or resist teaching and preaching is with a contrary teaching of your own. So, in other words this sorcerer was trying to convince Sergius Paulus that the words and teachings of these two apostles was wrong and foolish. He may have said something like this to Sergius, “Mr. Deputy, pardon my concern, but you realize that the Christ that these men preach was put to death by Caesar’s magistrate Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem only a few years ago do you not? You know that if you listen to these men and follow their teachings that you too might be put out of the favour of Caesar, and perhaps you too could be hung on a tree! Remember that you have an oath to worship Caesar above all other gods my dear fellow…You know I’m simply looking out for your best interests, &ct, &ct..”

And, in the last two verses of Pauls first letter to Timothy he says “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.” Again, Paul warns young Timothy that philosophy and opinions of men that lie outside the revealed truths that constitute the faith have caused professing christians to go into error concerning their understanding of what the faith is. And, that which was committed to Timothy’s trust was indeed the teachings of the apostle Paul concerning exactly what the faith is.

So, my dear reader, I reiterate my statement of the start. Without a doubt, the greatest necessity for the church today is “the unity of the faith”! We look at the landscape of the skyscrapers and the slums of doctrine and theology and say to ourselves, this is not the kingdom of God! This is not what I see when I look at the revealed word of God! What we see in the visible church are manmade monuments that have been dedicated to God and fancy creations of philosophy being passed off as expositional teaching. Dear reader, we have spent much time on this subject and we propose to continue in this subject and explore the areas of the faith that require absolute unity, those areas that leave no room for interpretation as it were.